Throwback Thursday: Panthers acquire Greg Olsen from Bears

Throwback Thursday: Panthers acquire Greg Olsen from Bears

Greg Olsen has been one of the most consistent tight ends we’ve seen across the entire NFL for just about his entire career. He’s only missed games during this season and his rookie season of 2007.

Olsen may not be suiting up this week, but he’ll certainly be rooting the Panthers on against a familiar foe.

After the Chicago Bears reached Super Bowl XLI (in which they lost 29-16 to Peyton Manning and Indianapolis Colts, finally getting the monkey off No. 18’s back) the Bears were sitting with the 31st overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. They used that pick to select Miami tight end Greg Olsen.

A knee injury in the preseason cost Olsen the first two weeks of the season, but he went on to play every game after that during his time with the Bears. That streak did not end until July 28, 2011.

That’s the day then-Bears general manager Jerry Angelo and then-head coach Mike Martz felt Olsen was no longer a fit for the Bears offense and shipped him off to Carolina in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.

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Martz’ offenses never really featured the tight end, so at the time it wasn’t considered a bad move. The Bears quickly realized it was. Angelo himself has even admitted as much.

In Olsen’s four seasons with the Bears, he racked up 1,981 yards on 194 catches, including his breakout season in 2009, where he caught 60 passes for 612 yards and eight touchdowns.

Olsen continued to be a strong force after he arrived in Carolina, helping Cam Newton become one of the better quarterbacks in the league and Olsen claimed his spot as one of the top tight ends in the league.

Olsen’s first season with Newton and the Panthers, which was also Newton’s rookie season, saw Olsen catch 45 passes for 540 and five touchdowns.

Since then, Olsen had not recorded a season with less than 800 yards receiving and has cracked the 1,000-yard mark in each of the previous three seasons. He won’t reach that mark this year after suffering a broken foot in Week 2 against the Bears, landing him on injured reserve.

The Bears took the third-round pick they acquired from Carolina, along with a third-round pick in 2013 and sent them to the Dolphins to acquire wide receiver Brandon Marshall, reuniting him with Jay Cutler, after the two played together in Denver.

Marshall had three productive seasons in Chicago, catching 279 passes for 3,524 yards and 31 touchdowns. After the 2014 season, the Bears sent he and a seventh-round pick to the Jets for a fifth-round pick. That pick ended up being former Penn State safety Adrian Amos, who has developed into a good player for the Bears. So it hasn’t ended all badly for the Bears.

Marshall, of course, signed with the Giants as a free agent in 2017, but suffered a season-ending ankle injury against the Chargers in Week 4.